The Perry Homestead
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Home of the in-laws of author Charles W. Chesnutt. Chesnutt lived here from 1878 to 1880 with his wife Susan immediately following their marriage.
Images
Backstory and Context
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Later information shows the location of the home as follows: 1909-10 city directory shows Mary Catherine Perry, Chesnutt’s mother-in-law, as living at 309 Mumford Street (now known as West Russell Street). The April 1908 Sanborn Map shows 309 Mumford Street almost directly across from where the Fayetteville Area Transportation Museum is now.
On 5 February 1912, the home was sold to Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad Company for $8,000 by Mary Catherine’s descendants (including Chas. Chesnutt).
By the time of the January 1914 Sanborn Map, the home was no longer standing. In its place there is the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad Depot and, next to that, the Fayetteville CocaCola Bottling Company.
As of February 2021, the land is still owned by the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad Company through a deed recorded over a century ago.
Sources
Fayetteville, Cumberland Co., N.Carolina, April 1908. UNC Chapel Hill. . . https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/ncmaps/id/5142/rec/5.
Fayetteville, N.C. Directory [1909-1910]. DigitalNC, https://bit.ly/2YB5DMj.
Insurance Maps of Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina, Jany. 1914. UNC Chapel Hill. . . https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/ncmaps/id/5186/rec/7.